Sugar Land Bible Church

Dr. Andy Woods: All righty. Let’s open our Bibles to the book of Acts. That's not a big shock, right? Book of Acts, since we're studying it. Acts 15:30. As you know, we're in that third part of the book where Jesus said you'll be my witnesses to the remote parts of the earth. That would include the three missionary journeys, Paul’s journey to Rome at the end, but sandwiched in between the first two missionary journeys is the Jerusalem Council.

We've been moving slow-paced through that. I know you guys haven't noticed that, right? But we're going to finish the Jerusalem Council today. Then next week, we'll be ready for missionary journey number two. The whole issue is after missionary journey one, where Paul and Barnabas left Antioch, the northern tip of Israel, and went into Southern Galatia for about two years. They preached the gospel to all these different Southern Galatian towns, modern-day Turkey, by the way. A peculiar thing happened: the dominant people getting saved were Gentiles, and it was the Jewish people that were rejecting the gospel.

By the time you get to the end of his first missionary journey and he gets back to Antioch, the sending church, they have to make a decision. What do we do with all these Gentiles that are now saved? Do they have to go under the law of Moses to walk with God? There were legalists that showed up there in Antioch—you see them in Acts 15:1-5—that demanded these Gentiles must go under the law of Moses to be part of the church.

That's the issue. Paul and Silas leave Antioch and travel south, moving up to Jerusalem, to get a decision from the apostles on this matter. The declarations are given in verses 6-21. Peter speaks, Paul speaks, and James, the half-brother of Christ, speaks. They come to a decision, which we studied last time in verses 22-29. The decision is that you do not, as a Gentile, have to come under the law of Moses to be part of the church.

They had to reason from Hebrew Bible millennial passages to reach this conclusion because we don't have any record of God speaking or giving a vision here like he does other times in the book of Acts. The decision has been made, and now the decision has to be delivered. That's verses 30-35. Once we finish that, which I think we're going to finish tonight, Lord willing, then we're going to get to chapter 15:36 next week and start the second missionary journey of Paul. That's going to span from chapter 15:36 and go all the way through chapter 18:21. If you like to read ahead, that would be the section you could read for next time.

Here's an outline of how the decision was delivered, verses 30-35. We start with the letter's delivery from Jerusalem to Antioch in verse 30. Notice what Acts 15:30 says: "So when they were sent away, they went down to Antioch; having gathered the congregation together, they delivered the letter." You have this team of Paul and Barnabas, who get this ruling from the apostles, along with a couple of guys that we met last time and the time before: a guy named Judas and another guy named Silas. We're going to run into them again in just a minute. They leave Jerusalem and they travel down to Antioch and deliver this ruling.

You'll notice it says they went down. That's a big deal. It shows that whoever wrote this—we believe it was Dr. Luke in the first century—understood geography really well. Jerusalem is always up; you're always traveling up to go to Jerusalem. Since they’re leaving Jerusalem, they went down. That's just a little thing to tuck into your arsenal because a lot of people will try to convince you that the Bible is just a bunch of fictitious nonsense. The things mentioned in the book of Acts are geographically accurate.

In fact, there's a section of Psalms in the Psalter—150 Psalms total—and it would be Psalm 120 through Psalm 134. If you guys are doing the one-year Bible reading program, you'll eventually get to a section in the Psalms, Psalm 120 to 134. These are what we would call the Psalms of Ascent. The reason they're called Psalms of Ascent is those were Psalms sung by Jews, or sometimes chanted, as they were traveling up to Jerusalem to show up at various feast days to worship the Lord.

Leviticus 23 has seven feasts of the Jews, and I think three of them, if I remember right, were mandatory in the sense that you had to go to the central sanctuary, which would be Jerusalem, to celebrate these feasts. Jesus five times in John's gospel is traveling up to Jerusalem as a devout Jew to celebrate these various feasts because Jesus was Jewish. He was a Hebrew.

In chapter 2:23, he’s traveling up to Jerusalem for Passover. Chapter 5:1, he’s traveling up for a feast; we don't know which one, it's not named. Chapter 7:2 of John, he’s traveling up to Jerusalem to celebrate Tabernacles. John 10:22, he’s traveling up to Jerusalem to celebrate Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication, which was a feast added to the Jewish calendar later on. Then in chapter 13:1, he’s traveling up to Jerusalem to celebrate Passover. It's no doubt that when he traveled to Jerusalem for these various feasts, he was involved in singing these Psalms of Ascent. This is the life of the Messiah, Jesus Christ, as a Jewish person.

That's why it says when the apostles handed down this ruling and they sent Paul, Barnabas, Judas, and Silas from Jerusalem back to Antioch, it says they went down because Jerusalem is always up. They reach Antioch with this decision, and the result of the decision is given in verse 31: "When they read it, they rejoiced because of its encouragement." You’ll notice this expression here: they rejoiced in Antioch when they heard this decision read to them. They were encouraged in Antioch when they heard this decision read to them. The reason they were so rejoicing in it is it took the Gentiles out of legalistic bondage.

One of the points that Peter makes as the decision is being discussed is he says, "We Jews have done a lousy job keeping the law if you look at our history. Why would we put on the backs of these Gentiles a yoke that we couldn't bear and they're not going to be able to bear it either?" As they came out from under legalism and the Pharisees were demanding this crowd go under legalism, the only thing they could really do is just be happy about it. They're encouraged; they're rejoicing. Legalism has been removed.

If you go back to verse 24, as the Pharisees were teaching their legalistic doctrine that you must go under the law of Moses as a Gentile to be part of the church, you remember that it says they were disturbed, these Gentiles. Their souls were unsettled. If you go back to verse 19, it says the Gentiles were troubled. Anytime someone tries to put you under something that God doesn't put you under—it could be anything, really, that's not specified in the Bible—essentially what that does is it creates a burden on you and it doesn't give you the power to fulfill the burden because God doesn't empower people to fulfill burdens that he didn't give them.

What God does is when he places you under a burden of some kind, he gives you the power to fulfill it. That's why it says in 1 John 5:3 the commandments of Christ are not burdensome. That's why Jesus says, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light." When you're walking with the Lord, there's the power to do what he asks you to do. But if you're under a bunch of rocks or whatever that God didn't put on you, there's no power to fulfill these obligations. You get very frustrated in the Christian life, you get burnt out in the Christian life, and you get very fatigued in the Christian life. Many people today are living the Christian life just that way. They're under all these burdens and they're mad at God because they think God put them under these burdens, when the truth of the matter is God never put them under the burdens at all.

When they discover they're not under those burdens, their reaction is they're encouraged and they're rejoicing. That's the attitude of these Gentiles. Christianity is not about enslaving people; it's the opposite. Paul writing to the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 3:17 says, "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." That's how you can tell immediately when you're in an environment if the Holy Spirit is in control of that environment. Is it producing liberty or is it producing guilt and bondage? It's not that God doesn't convict us to get us in line—I'm not denying that—but the general life of the Christian is a life of joy. So many Christians seem to miss this. They're kind of sad-faced saints and always distressed, depressed, and under all kinds of bondage. You look at their lives and say, "Gosh, what are they missing in the Christian life?" Christianity is about liberty, freedom, and emancipation.

Paul in Galatians 5:1, critiquing legalism, says, "It was for freedom that Christ has set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." That's why these Gentiles are so happy; they don't have to go under a bunch of legalism and bondage. Jesus said in John 8:32, "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." John 8:36 says, "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." There's a lot of people that just want to stay away from Jesus because they think he's just going to make them miserable. That's a mischaracterization and a misrepresentation of Jesus. If you're dealing with someone who's saying come to Christ and you can be as unhappy as I am, that's not someone that's representing Jesus very well at all. In fact, they're misrepresenting Jesus.

There's this immediate jubilation as these Gentiles are figuring out that they're not under legalistic bondage. I used this verse a couple of Sundays ago in our study in Exodus; it's Leviticus 25:10. It says, "Proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants." That verse is actually inscribed on our Liberty Bell. America was birthed in liberty and freedom, and they took Leviticus 25:10 and put it on our Liberty Bell. They grabbed something from the Bible that they thought was appropriate because our founding fathers, obviously not perfect people, understood that the basic assumption of scripture is freedom.

Leviticus 25 is all about the Year of Jubilee where people were released from debts. Just like today, people can get themselves into financial bondage by spending too much or impulse buying, or sometimes there's a circumstances beyond your control, like a medical issue that was not anticipated and the bills pile up, or you can get laid off from your job. The same kind of thing was happening back in the time of Moses and God basically had a solution for it. Every 50th year, all of the personal debts were erased. Debt financially is bondage. The Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender.

When you put yourself in heavy debt—and I'm not one of those that says never go into debt, I'm one that says if you use debt, be very prayerful about it because if you didn't have some debt, you could probably never get a house or a car or anything—just understand that the moment you put yourself in debt is the moment you're putting yourself in a place of bondage. That's what the scripture says. Use it very sparingly. You don't want to be a slave to man; you want to be a servant to the Lord. Because of this financial bondage, every 50th year, Year of Jubilee, debts were erased. It was a time of freedom. Of course, that is a type of Jesus. He's released us from all of our debts of sin. I don't have any sin debt I owe to God anymore. I've been released from all of that.

Our founding fathers were so impressed with that that they decided to take that scripture verse and put it on the Liberty Bell and this new nation that was starting 250 years ago or so that wanted to promote freedom and liberty. The message of the Bible is freedom and liberty, not bondage, misery, and unhappiness. Then you go down to verse 32 and you see Judas and Silas's ministry because remember when this decision was handed down from Jerusalem, the group that went back from Jerusalem to Antioch was Paul and Barnabas. They're going to do the speaking primarily. Judas and Silas went as well.

Notice verse 32: "Judas and Silas, also being prophets themselves, encouraged and strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message." I like that. I want to give a lengthy message on that right there, the lengthy message in verse 32. But first of all, who's Judas and Silas? We ran into them in verse 22 and in verse 27. I shared this with you before from Arnold Fruchtenbaum's Acts commentary. It says of the Jerusalem church, "The whole church made the decision to choose men out of their company meaning members of the church of Jerusalem to go with Paul and Barnabas to Antioch so that they could witness the validity of the report. Two men were chosen: the first was Judas or Judah." When we see the word Judas, we're always thinking of the one who betrayed Christ, but this is a different guy. That guy is already dead; he committed suicide and he was replaced with Matthias in the apostolic foundation.

Judas was a common name in that time period. The first was Judas or Judah, who was known as Barsabbas, which means son of the Sabbath. This is the only time he's mentioned in scripture, and nothing else is known about him. He may have been the brother of Joseph Barsabbas mentioned in Acts 1:23. When they were anticipating who's going to fill the vacancy left by the deceased Judas, there were some possibilities. One was Joseph Barsabbas, who's mentioned in Acts 1:23, and they decided not to go with him; they decided to go with Matthias. This Joseph Barsabbas might have been a relative or maybe a brother of this Judas Barsabbas that we're reading about here. Other than that, we know almost nothing about him.

The second man was Silas, which was his Hebrew name about whom much more is known. His Roman name was Silvanus, and in this time period, it was common for people to have multiple names because there were four languages on the table here in the ancient Greco-Roman world: Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, and Latin. When you look at the gospels and what was placed over Christ as he was dying to mock him, "The King of the Jews," one gospel says it was written in Hebrew, one gospel says it was written in Aramaic, one gospel says it was written in Greek, and one gospel says it was written in Latin. That's not a contradiction; that's just communicating that there were probably four signs over his head because there were four different languages in play at this time.

Peter had a Greek name, Petros, an Aramaic name, Cephas, and a Hebrew name, Simon. It's true with this guy Silas, whose name in Latin was Silvanus. You'll see him used interchangeably in the New Testament. The second man was Silas, which was his Hebrew name. He became Paul's companion on his second missionary journey. He's also mentioned in several of the Epistles. According to Acts 15:32, he too had the gift of prophecy. Judas and Silas were chief men among the brethren; they were leaders of the church of Jerusalem. This gave them authoritative standing for what they had to say to the church at Antioch.

These two men are prophets. Prophets in this time period received direct revelations from God and proclaimed them in such a way that the people were always encouraged. 1 Corinthians 14:3 says, "But the one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation." When a prophet came into your life in this time period, he was basically there as a source of encouragement to you. That's what's happening as these two, Judas and Silas, are functioning as prophets. They're encouraging the Gentiles. 1 Corinthians 14:26 of spiritual gifts says, "Let all things be done for edification," meaning building. That's the purpose and point of spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are given to the body of Christ to bless and serve people.

When you operate in your spiritual gift—everyone has at least one because it keeps saying "each" in 1 Corinthians 12:7, "each is to use his gift"—what you'll discover is other people are built up. Other people are edified because every spiritual gift has as its focus somebody else. That's why God gave you the gift. When God blessed you with a gift, he had in mind all of the people that would be edified through your faithful use of your gifting. That's sort of how to discover what your spiritual gift is. One of the things you look for is what is the desire of your heart? What do you like to do? Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart."

The second thing you look for is people in an unsolicited manner coming to you and saying, "You know, when you do such and such, I'm really blessed." If you're discovering something that you enjoy doing and then simultaneously and concurrently you discover people are being blessed by whatever it is you're doing—whether it's administration, mercy, leadership, teaching, preaching, knowledge, or whatever, there's lots of different spiritual gifts—if you've got those two things coming together simultaneously, then the Holy Spirit is showing you that's what your spiritual gifting is. That's what your calling in your life is to pursue the use of that for the building up of the body of Christ. These two guys are prophets. As they're exercising their spiritual gifts, the Gentiles there in Antioch are strengthened and encouraged, which is the purpose of spiritual gifts.

I've got a comment on this verse 32: Judas and Silas, there in Antioch, strengthened the brethren with a lengthy message. We're living in a time period where people don't want lengthy messages. Here is one of our pastors—you guys know him—Ed Young. He said recently—he's a mega-church pastor—mega-church pastor claims that 30-minute sermons are too long for modern audiences. The big pressure in ministry today is cut it back, keep it short, apply the scripture immediately to the relevant needs of your audience, and move on and sit down and shut up. That's basically the pressure that pastors are being put under.

I have fought this my entire ministry, this mentality. I haven't just had to fight it here; I fought it where I was before I moved to Texas, and it's this perpetual pressure to pastors to not be long-winded, keep it short, keep it quick. "There's a football game coming on, don't you know anything? This is Texas; Super Bowl Sunday's coming up, or did I miss it?" Shows you how much I care. "We've got to get out for the Super Bowl." "What time does it start?" "It starts at 4:00." "Well, no problem, we get out at 12:30." "Well, I've got to watch the pre-game show." "When does that start?" "That starts at 3:00." "Well, no problem, we get out at 12:30." "Well, you don't really understand, I've got to watch the pre-pre-pre-game show."

Now I see what's going on. People can give themselves with unbroken concentration to a movie, like Star Wars, two hours or more, but they can't concentrate in church for an hour listening to a sermon. You're dealing with a generation that has a TikTok kind of attention span, and they really don't want to come to a church that's just too long. We've had people come here and tell me that. "We like you, we like the church, but man, you guys are just too long." If that's your mentality, there are plenty of other churches that will cater to that. Most churches to grow, according to Ed Young, say you have to do that.

I'm wondering if the next generation comes along and he thinks 30 minutes is too long, is the next generation going to say it needs to be 15 minutes? It just keeps getting shorter and shorter. What you're dealing with is a church that's a mile wide but an inch deep. You're dealing with a generation that knows almost nothing about the Bible, and you're dealing with a generation that really is not equipped for their Christian life. When the first trial hits their life, they have no concept of how to deal with it because the pastors in the pulpits are catering over and over again to this very short attention span. As one man put it, you've got today sermonettes for Christianettes.

The truth of the matter is the job of a pastor is not to cater to the whims of the audience. That's what ear-ticklers do. Paul in the last days talked about people that will put around them teachers that tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. A lot of church marketers come on the scene and cater to that mentality because that's good marketing. You give the audience what they want. The problem is it's really poor ecclesiology, theology, bibliology, and doctrine. It's not what God wants. The role of a pastor is not to accommodate to the itching ears of the people; it's to bring people up to the next level.

What you'll discover with people is they start to develop an appetite for what they're fed. If you just feed them this pop-psychology 20-minute deals—most churches today it's like a TED Talk and a light show—and if you just give them that every single week, that's what the people are going to be hungry for. But if you start to feed them meat, which is what we try to do here, what you'll discover is people will develop an appetite for meat. If you don't give them meat on a Sunday, they'll get disappointed. When I came here, I had to fight the "let's beat the Baptist to the cafeteria" mentality. "We need to get out by noon, and I've got stuff to do." I expanded the worship service from noon to 12:30, which is the unpardonable sin in Christianity. People will rise up and stone you to death for doing something like that.

Fortunately, I had a very good elder board that wanted that. They told me that's what they wanted when they hired me. I said to those guys, "I hope you know what you're getting because I'll do it." They stood by me and you had people that got irritated and left, but what starts to happen over a longer period of time is more people start to come because they identify with what you're doing. The people that don't like it, it's not like they don't have somewhere else to pick from; there's a gazillion other churches to give them these very short attention span type sermons. Our philosophy here is not to cater to the audience, but it is to bring people to the next level.

One man put it this way: the job of a preacher is not to bring the world in, but it is to bring heaven down. You may not in the end have the biggest church in Houston doing it that way, but I'll tell you one thing: you've got people in your church that are equipped and they're ready for Christianity and they're ready for life. They know how to interact with unsaved people, they know what their purpose and calling is, and they have a tendency to be a lot healthier at the end of the day. We have a epidemic of anemic sheep, and the person you want to blame is the pastors because their whole job is to equip the saints. If the sheep are in an anemic state, then it is the fault of the spiritual leadership; in particular, it's the fault of the pulpit. This is a philosophy that I completely and totally reject, what he's saying here.

Obviously Judas and Silas would laugh at you if they said keep it short in Antioch because there they are encouraging the brethren with a lengthy message. Paul the apostle in Acts 20:7 says he prolonged his message until midnight. What would you guys do if I did that? We're talking 12:30 PM, Paul went on until midnight. Have you read Nehemiah chapter 8:1-4 lately, what Ezra did? This caused a revival in the post-exilic community. Nehemiah 8:3, talking about Ezra reading and teaching from the law: he read from it before the square which was in front of the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of men and women and those who could understand, and all the people were attentive to the book. People have the capacity to pay attention; it's just a matter of the will.

Our relationship with the 3DTC program proves that. Kids will never sit, high school, junior high, and younger, they will never sit on a Saturday for eight hours listening to Bible teaching. That's modern educational theory talking. To refute it, all you've got to do is come to a 3DTC meeting where you see kids, high school, junior high, and younger, sitting there for about eight hours every day listening to the Bible being taught, taking notes, having conversations about it. It's just a matter of people have the ability; you just have to have spiritual leadership that's courageous enough to bring people to the next level. You see that philosophy at work here. Then you have Judas and Silas's departure, that's in verse 33: "After they had spent time there, they were sent away from the brethren in peace to those who had sent them out."

Judas and Silas, Paul and Barnabas stay in Antioch because Paul is going to use Antioch as he does on all his missionary journeys to launch out into missionary journey number two. Judas and Silas leave Antioch and they go back, not down, Psalms of Ascent, but up to Jerusalem. You'll also notice the word brethren there in verse 33. After they spent some time there, that's Antioch, after this lengthy message from Judas and Silas, they were sent away from the brethren in peace to those who had sent them out. Notice that the people that had this issue were the brethren, the believers. What got fixed in Acts 15 was not a justification issue because the people were already saved. It was not a sanctification issue because they already had the book of Galatians, which dealt with that issue. But it was an ecclesiology issue, Acts 15. In all three cases, there were people trying to mix law with faith.

The Pharisees originally came in the ministry of Christ and tried to mix law with faith to be justified. Jesus overthrew them in Matthew 5:20, where he said, "For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven." Obviously, you're not justified through obedience to the law; you're justified by faith alone. Because if you want to be justified before God through obedience to the law, you have to have a perfect track record and your law keeping must be better than that of the Pharisees, and who could ever keep that high standard?

The second group was trying to mix faith and law to be sanctified. "You've got to come under the law of Moses to grow as a Christian." That crowd was overthrown in the book of Galatians, which was written at the end of Paul's first missionary journey. In Galatians 3:3, Paul said, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" You're not sanctified by the law; you're sanctified by the power of the Holy Spirit. You grow as a Christian the same way you were saved. You were saved by faith alone under the power of the Holy Spirit alone; that's how you grow as a Christian.

The third group of Pharisees—Pharisees are always mixing law and faith somehow—they told all these Gentiles you've got to go under the law to join the church. We just saw that crowd, that third group, get overthrown in Acts 15. That's what the whole decision is about, the Jerusalem Council, as it's sometimes called, although I've tried to make the point that this is actually the second Jerusalem Council. The first one is in Acts 11 concerning whether Cornelius could be saved as a Gentile. This one here is trying to figure out do these Gentiles have to come under the law to be part of the church? Answer: no. This was not dealing with a sanctification issue, it was not dealing with a justification issue, this was dealing with an ecclesiological issue and the word brethren which is used there in verse 33 helps us understand that. This is a discussion that was happening amongst the saved people. That's why when you go back to Acts 15:1, it says some Jews came down from Judea and began teaching the brethren.

This is not a justification issue that just got handed down, this is not a sanctification issue that just got handed down, this is an ecclesiological issue that just got handed down. Paul and Barnabas stay in Antioch, Judas and Silas leave Antioch and go back to Jerusalem, right? Well, not so fast because look at verse 34: "But it seemed good to Silas to remain there." I'm reading out of the New American Standard Bible. Some of you are not reading out of the New American Standard Bible; you might be looking at this in the King James Version, New King James Version. In most English translations, it'll have a little bracket. Do you guys have a bracket in yours? Most of you do. There's a little footnote there, do you see it? You follow it to the bottom of the page; mine says the early manuscripts do not contain this verse.

If you're reading from the King James Version, it won't say that at all. What in the world is going on here? It says Silas left Antioch and went back to Jerusalem, and now the next verse, which has this funny bracket around it, says Silas actually didn't leave Antioch; he stayed in Antioch. What's happening here and what does this strange little bracket mean that says this is not found in the better manuscripts? We've just entered into the world of text criticism. You have to understand this or else Satan is just going to have a field day in your mind because you're going to read the story of the woman caught in adultery in John 8, and if you're not reading out of the King James Version but another English translation, it'll say this is not found in the better manuscripts. You'll be reading the end of Mark's gospel where it talks about you're going to be bitten by scorpions and not be hurt and those kind of things and there'll be this bracket at the bottom of the whole paragraph that says this is not found in the better manuscripts.

Then you read in the King James and it doesn't say that. If you don't have somebody explaining this to you, text criticism, Satan is just going to run a field day in your mind causing you to doubt the Bible. That's why I'm bringing this to your attention. This is something called text criticism. We don't have the original manuscripts of the New Testament. We don't have them. Thank God we don't. Because if we had them and they got damaged in any way, the whole cause of Christ is hurt. Look what people do when they think they've found a splinter of the cross or something; they start to worship it, don't they? Think what they would do if they found the original manuscripts of the book of Acts or Matthew or whatever.

So there is very sound logic as to why the Holy Spirit did not allow us to keep the original manuscripts. What then do we have? We have copies of the originals. Don't let that discourage you because we come out way ahead compared to any other work of antiquity because we don't have the originals of Caesar, Plato, Thucydides, or Tacitus either. What do we have? We have copies of those writings. When you study how many copies we have compared to other works of antiquity, and you study the time period between our earliest manuscript and when the original was written, what you'll discover is we have more copies than anybody. The time distance between our earliest manuscript and the alleged time of the original is shorter compared to any other work of antiquity.

If this issue bothers you, then you have to throw out all of these other writings as well, which no one wants to do. With the writings of Caesar, how much of a time is there between the earliest manuscript and the original? A thousand years. How many manuscripts do we have? Ten. How about Plato? 1,200 years, seven manuscripts. Thucydides, 1,300 years, eight manuscripts. Tacitus, 1,000 years, 20 manuscripts. Suetonius, 800 years, eight manuscripts. Homer's "The Iliad," which you may have studied in high school and college, 500 years, 643 manuscripts. How about the New Testament? Looky, looky, looky here. 25 to 50 years, and we have 24,000 New Testament manuscripts.

Whether you're talking about the time distance between our earliest manuscript and the original or the number of manuscripts that we have, we come out smelling like a rose. No one is going to throw out Suetonius. You know why they're not going to throw out Suetonius or Homer or Tacitus or Plato? Because those guys don't make a moral claim on people's lives. Jesus does. So they always treat Jesus and his teachings with a different standard. It's a double standard. Does Dan Rather run Easter specials against Plato? No, he only runs them against Jesus. Why are you picking on Jesus, Dan? Because Jesus makes a moral claim on people's lives that the others don't. So it's a blatant double standard if you want to say the New Testament is unreliable.

Here's another chart communicating the same thing. Caesar, a thousand years, 10 manuscripts. Plato, 1,200 years, seven manuscripts. Thucydides, 1,300 years, eight manuscripts. Tacitus, 1,000 years, 20 manuscripts. Suetonius, 800 years, eight manuscripts. Homer's "The Iliad," 500 years, 643 manuscripts. Look here, New Testament, 25 to 50 years, 24,000 manuscripts. Why do we have so many manuscripts of the New Testament? There is a very simple answer to that: Christianity from its inception has always been evangelistic because we want to get people saved. That's why the earliest Christians started copying and copying and copying and copying.

Now here's the deal when it comes to text criticism. All of these manuscripts that we have, they all agree with each other 99.9% of the time. But 0.1% of the time there might be disagreements. Those are called variants. Someone told me you could take all of the variants and reduce them to writing that would take the room of maybe one page of paper. They disagree with each other 0.01% of the time. When they disagree with each other, it affects no major doctrine. It doesn't affect the Trinity, virgin birth, deity of Christ, anything like that. What do you do when you have manuscripts that in a very small percentage of time happen to disagree with each other? That's where text critics come in and there are people that devote their whole lives to this; it's a science.

What you're trying to figure out is of two variant readings, which one better reflects the original, which we don't have? That's what a text critic is trying to do with these variants. If you're reading out of the New American Standard Bible, you have to understand that it has a different philosophy of text criticism. The philosophy of most English translations is earlier is better. If it says such and such in an earlier manuscript, then that's what we go with. Apparently, verse 34 doesn't show up in the earliest manuscripts that we have, that's why it has this bracket around it.

If you're reading from the King James Version—and these are both excellent translations produced by men of God, they just happen to have slightly different philosophies on this area of text criticism—the King James will basically go with what's called Majority Text. They will say if it's in the majority of manuscripts, that's what we go with. Not necessarily the earlier, but the majority. That's why you don't have this bracket in the King James Version, but you do have it in the NASB, because the NASB is following a different philosophy of text criticism than the King James. NASB earlier better; King James majority is what you go with.

We ran into this with the church. When did the church start? I gave you a long explanation why the church started in Acts 2. The reason I had to give you that explanation is the NASB doesn't say the church started in Acts 2, but the King James Version does. The NASB does not mention the word church when the early Christians—they weren't even called Christians yet, believers in Yeshua—gathered, but the King James Version mentions the church. How come the word church is in the King James but it's not in the NASB? Answer: they're following a variant reading, and they're following different philosophies of text criticism.

Most people would say not necessarily the King James, but the NASB would say, "You know what? This verse here, verse 34, was added." It doesn't affect any major doctrine of Christianity, but it probably is not the reading that best reflects the original. Arnold Fruchtenbaum gives this explanation. It says, "Some ancient authorities insert with variations verse 34: 'But it seemed good unto Silas to abide there.' Some Bibles may have the sentence in the main text, others in the margin. Either way, the verse was probably a scribal attempt to explain how Silas could leave with Paul from Antioch on the second missionary journey, verse 40."

Verse 33 says Silas left Antioch and went back to Jerusalem. But if you look at verse 40, as Paul is going off on missionary journey number two, who's with him? Silas. So probably a scribe at some point got uncomfortable with that and added this little thing about how it seemed good for Silas to remain there. The King James would say it's authentic because it's in the majority of manuscripts; the NASB would say it's not authentic because it's not in the earliest manuscripts. Does it affect any major issue in Christianity? No, it's just a scribe maybe got overzealous, didn't want this contradiction, and so the scribe added something. It's a variant reading.

That's Arnold Fruchtenbaum's understanding of how verse 34 got in there. He says, "Either way, the verse probably is a scribal attempt to explain how Silas could leave with Paul from Antioch on the second missionary journey in verse 40. We can't have Silas taking off because he's leaving Antioch, so let's just throw in a little addition, overzealous scribe. Yet most likely this verse is not part of the original text because verse 33 states that both Judas and Silas returned to Jerusalem. Apparently, Silas came back to Antioch later to accompany Paul." I don't think you need verse 34 added; I think Silas could have gone to Jerusalem and come back, but some overzealous scribe thought otherwise and added a verse in there.

That's my understanding of verse 34. You might be a King James reader and you say, "Well, I think the verse is authentic because it's in the majority of manuscripts." And I say praise the Lord, I'm glad you think that way; we can still be friends at the end of the day. This is not something to divide on. You have a very legitimate understanding of text criticism, it's just a little different from mine here. I hope that helps because sometimes if someone doesn't explain this to you, it will just wreak havoc in your mind because you think, "Oh my goodness, stuff is added, stuff is taken out." It's not that big of a deal what I'm talking about.

Let's wrap this up, shall we? Verse 34, which we've read, that's the problematic verse; Silas remains at Antioch if you're a King James reader. Then verse 35: "But Paul and Barnabas stayed in Antioch." What did they do there? Teaching and preaching with many others also the word of the Lord. Why are they building up Antioch in the word of God? Because Antioch is the sending church. It's from Antioch, the northern tip of Israel, that the three missionary journeys will be launched. The first one is past, two more coming, and so since they’re the sending church, they need to be built up in the word of God.

Man does not live by bread alone, but on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. There's always a priority in Christianity within the local church of preaching and teaching. That's why we don't cater to here the short attention spans of the masses. Acts 2:42, they were continually devoting themselves to the apostles' teaching. All the things the early church did, the very first thing on the list is they gave themselves to study and doctrine. Paul was a great student and communicator of God's word because he declared to the church at Ephesus, "I've given you the whole counsel of God's word." It should be that way because the church, 1 Timothy 3:15, is the pillar and the support of truth. All scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

That's why the gift of pastor-teacher is in the body of Christ, to build up the body, Ephesians 4:11-16. This is why Dan Wallace—and I'll end with this quote from his, which I think is very good, talking about 2 Timothy, Paul's swan song—teaching a pastor how to be a pastor, Paul teaching Timothy how to be a pastor and what to focus on. Wallace says, "By my count, there are 27 explicit commands given in the body of this letter, 2 Timothy. In 27 words, Paul tells pastors what to focus on. You have to be blind to miss the thrust of Paul's instruction here because 18 of those commands, fully two-thirds of them, have to do with the ministry of the word." You get into pastoral ministry and there are all kinds of things pulling you in all kinds of different directions and you have to figure out what your priorities are. The priority of a pastor is to study and teach.

That's what 2 Timothy is about, that's what Antioch needed because they were going to be the sending church in Paul's second and third missionary journeys. That's how this decision was delivered. Decision over: Gentiles don't have to come under the law of Moses to join the church. We spent several weeks going through this; this is pivotal in Christian history. Next week, we're going on a missionary journey. You guys ready? Got your bags packed? We're going to go some cool places. Take a look this week if you could at Acts 15:36 through chapter 18:22 just to get kind of a sense of what's coming. Let's pray.

Father, we're grateful for your word, your truth. Help us to reflect your priorities here at Sugar Land Bible Church. We'll be careful to give you all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus' name. God's people said, "Amen." All right, if you've got to take off and collect your young ones, we'll give you a couple of seconds to do that and we can open it up for Q&A as soon as I get the high sign from our tech crew.